Aciqra
"(uh-SEE-kruh) is a free and open source virtual
sky map and planetarium which tracks and displays astronomical bodies including
planets, nebulae and stars to an accuracy of a fraction of a degree for thousands
of years into both the future and the past. It's software that generates a virtual
sky so you'll always know exactly what's up in the real one. Aciqra includes
and displays a wide variety of different objects. It tracks and simulates solar
system objects like the Moon, the Sun, the planets, asteroids and comets. It
also includes a large database of stars and various other deep space objects
including star clusters, nebulae and galaxies." It is really pretty cool.
It would have a multitude of uses. One use would be to teach older kids and
secondary/university students more about astronomy. This is really professional-level,
but easy to use. Need help? There's
a page for that. Their Sourceforge project page is here.
Did we mention this is free?

American
Sign Language Learning Aid
Link goes to the program page. Download the program
here.
This is the Windows version, there are others. "A set of programs designed
to help the beginner ASL student learn ASL. It is composed of two parts: ASLLA-Dictionary
and ASLLA-Fingerspeller. ASLLA-Dict allows the student to look up English->ASL
sign. ASLLA-Fspell allows the beginner to practice seeing fingerspelling."
Thanks to Andy Uehara, who wrote these programs and is deaf, if that matters
to you. Cool. A short manual and other info may be found inside the unzipped
program folder. Found it on Sourceforge.

Balancing
Act
from PhET is for elementary grades.
It teaches Balance, Rotational Equilibrium, Lever Arm, Torque, and Proportional
Reasoning with an easy to understand interactive applet using a teeter-totter.
Kids think they're playing a game!

"Sample
Learning Goals:

Predict how objects of various masses can be used to make a plank balance.

Predict how changing the positions of the masses on the plank will affect the
motion of the plank.

Write rules to predict which way a plank will tilt when objects are placed on
it.

Use your rules to solve puzzles about balancing.

The
teacher's
guide (pdf) contains tips created by the PhET team." It's good, like
a recipe for doing this lesson. GSFK recommends you download it. PhET has LOTS
of these simulations, indexed by grade level and by subject area.

Balloons
and Static Electricity Another interactive
science simulationfrom PhET.
"Why does a balloon stick to your sweater? Rub a balloon on a sweater,
then let go of the balloon and it flies over and sticks to the sweater. View
the charges in the sweater, balloons, and the wall."

Brain Workshop "What
if a simple mental exercise could improve your memory and intelligence? A recent
study published in PNAS, an important scientific journal, shows that a particular
memory task called Dual N-Back may actually improve working memory (short term
memory) and fluid intelligence. This finding is important because fluid intelligence
was previously thought to be unchangeable. Anecdotal evidence suggests that
the dual n-back task also enhances focus and attention and may help improve
the symptoms of ADHD/ADD. The game involves remembering a sequence of spoken
letters and a sequence of positions of a square at the same time. Brain Workshop
is a free open-source version of the Dual N-Back
mental exercise. Easy download, easy install. Another SourceForge discovery.

Celestia
Fantastically cool
download!"... The free
space simulation that lets you explore our universe in three dimensions. Celestia
runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. " Zoom between planets and
constellations, watch Deimos and Phobos fly across the face of Mars, hundreds
of other things to see! With data on every object you look at. Download it from
SourceForge. Stupifyingly wonderful. (Celestia must be installed on computers,
it cannot be played online.)

Celestia
Motherlode is where you can download free extensions,
add-ons, etc for Celestia. If it's even possible to improve upon Celestia,
this is where to do it. There are some really great things here! Watch the file
size, some of these are fairly big for some school computers.

Children's
Books Forever! "Free children's books that have become favorites
around the world. You can use them on Smartboard, PowerPoint, or overhead projectors."
Prometheans, too, we might add. All are in pdf format so can download and save
them.

Childsplay
"is a suite of educational games for young children." 14 games in
all. We've used these with 5 - 8 year olds and the games are excellent! Free
to you (GNU-GPL licensed) and ready to download and install. Another excellent
effort from an independent programmer, courtesy of Sourceforge.

Cool SchoolNow
an online game!The download version is not available
anymore - if you still have yours, make a backup!

Drawing for Children is a great,
very cool, free download (Windows only) from the Netherlands. It says "drawing"
but it has been used in computer labs for language arts, too! You can enter
text and load .bmp files from Windows Paint. "Drawing for Children is a
free drawing program for children with many nice options. The best way to learn
to use it is simply to use it. There is though a document describing the use
of the program. For more information, see the readme file." Click on everything!
Right click, left-click, hold down both sides of the mouse at once! Two other
places to get this game, maybe easier to use, are: Softonic
and software.informer.

Educational-freewareNow with even more new stuff! Check this site out!! "Welcome
to www.educational-freeware.com! This site is dedicated to listings, descriptions
and reviews of the best free educational software
for kids and adults. Some of the software is web based (see the online section),
and some is Windows software that you can download (see the downloadable section).
Many of the software titles are multilingual. In order to see what titles run
in your language, you can list the software by language."

English
for early years These are lessons in letter sounds/phonemes
and sentence structure (how to make a sentence show sequence of events.) Downloadable
zip files that make folders containing the lesson, which will then start your
browser. Interactive Flash lessons that use your browser. From Education
Services Australia and Curriki.

Flash Cardsfree download game for Windows only. This is a
great game. "It's a simple flashcard program that
covers addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. You can select any
one of the operations to practice on, or have the program mix them up. Though
the default is 10, facts up to 100 are selectable. Version 3.0 includes the
ability to practice fractions. A timer or a clock runs in the background, and
a count of correct/incorrect answers is displayed. This program is freeware.
Enjoy."

GCompris
Our first app from France! Available in over 40 languages
(see their main
page for a list). "GCompris is an educational software suite comprising
of numerous activities for children aged 2 to 10...Currently GCompris offers
in excess of 80 activities and more are being developed. GCompris is free software,
that means that you can adapt it to your own needs, improve it and, most importantly,
share it with children everywhere." Computer discovery, color, sounds,
memory, experiential, amusement, reading, mathematics, puzzles,telling time,
money, and strategy games like mancala. Some of these will really make a child
think! Another SourceForge find.

GNUmber
Munchers
"is an educational math program based on MECC's early 80s munchers games,
with new graphics." So writes Will Heublein, whose two fun and playable
Number Munchers tributes are your freeware alternative
to hunting down those old games and trying (usually without success) to make
them run again. OK, so these are not exact clones of the MECC games, but they're
close enough! We've been using them with elementary and middle school students
for a few years now and they get the job done. No mouse needed, just use the
arrow keys. GNUmber
Munchers 2010 is an online beta version that runs fine on Internet
Explorer. We wish more people would emulate Mr. Heublein and redo some of the
good old MECC games! To
download these games: Go to the very bottom of the GNUmber Munchers page where
it says "Old Windows versions (Downloadable .exe files):" Standard
version is for upper elementary/middle/jr high students, Elementary is for elementary
kids. What is GNU?

GeoGebra "GeoGebra is free
and multi-platform dynamic mathematics software for learning and teaching. It
has received several educational software awards in Europe and the USA."
Math teachers only - please read on: "...dynamic
mathematics software for all levels of education that joins arithmetic, geometry,
algebra and calculus. On the one hand, GeoGebra is an interactive geometry system.
You can do constructions with points, vectors, segments, lines, conic sections
as well as functions and change them dynamically afterwards. On the other hand,
equations and coordinates can be entered directly. Thus, GeoGebra has the ability
to deal with variables for numbers, vectors and points, finds derivatives and
integrals of functions and offers commands like Root or Extremum. These two
views are characteristic of GeoGebra: an expression in the algebra view corresponds
to an object in the graphics view and vice versa."It's easier
to play with this program than it is to read the above! This is wonderful
free software with its own wiki and support groups.

Graph
4.3 Here's a powerful upper grades' free
function graphing program from Denmark (it's in English). Draw functions, draw
relations, save as graphics and .pdf, evaluate, calculate, point series, trendlines,
shade, label, create your own custom functions. Another SourceForge project.
Made by Ivan Johansen. "The program is open source (GNU GPL) and you may
give it to whomever you like."

Horazio's
freeware Here is a real potpourri of good free
download ed games, by a guy from Venice, Italy named Horazio. Among them is
TurboFarm, for 5 - 7 year olds, which is an animal names matching game. There
are also some excellent interactive map games to help kids learn the names of
states or regions. Examples are Liberty Map to teach the names of US states,
another for Greater London, one for Italy, etc. There are also games to learn
Japanese characters, vector math plotters, calorie counters, and more. Your
choice of English, Italian, and Spanish (one game also has Korean.) "Grazie
Horazio"

Interactive
Math Simulations from PhET
at CU Boulder. Here are 28 mathematics-related playable simulations - everything
from fractions and times tables to physics, upper level math, and playing Plinko!
Play online (needs Java), or download and install them, or embed them in your
webpage! Don't forget to see the rest of PhET's simulations!

There is also
a list of tutorials
designed to learn the use of Jmol, and more help, within Jmol Wiki.

Finally, there
is a documentation section
in this web site, for more technical details.

Kea Coloring Book
"All the fun. None of the mess!" This free program
lets kids color, save and print. It's like a coloring book on your computer.
At least 250 more pictures can be downloaded from the site and added to the
coloring books. You can download the program at various download sites (the
Kea site links to C/NET's Download,
which works fine). We used
Educational
Freeware as a personal preference.

LenMus
(link goes to download site at SourceForge) "A free
program to learn music... LenMus is a free program for learning music. LenMus
program allows you to focus on specific skills and exercises, on both theory
and aural training. The different activities can be customized to meet your
needs, and it provides interactive feedback until mastery of each concept is
achieved. It also includes an score editor." Small download - 5.8 Mb.

Logism"An educational tool for designing and simulating digital
logic circuits, featuring a simple-to-learn interface, hierarchical circuits,
wire bundles, and a large component library. As a Java application, it can run
on many platforms. " "Excellent tool for learning, simple and effective."
"Logism is an excellent tool for exploring how digital circuits work and
makes for a tremendously useful teaching aid." This excellent GNU General
Public License (GPL) free download
comes courtesy of sourceforge.net. Small download - 6.6
Mb.

Minisebran- Freeware For Toddlers. This is from Marianne
Wartoft, a very intelligent Swede who has also created the excellent ABC
Sebran and Seterra
(best geography freeware EVER for kids AND adults!) among others. "Minisebran
is a free suite of early learning games for kids 2-6 years old . It includes
eight different exercises, including doodle drawing exercises and very simple
games to get to know the numbers and letters, and learning to use the keyboard."
We've played with it, it's fun! It would be useful for K - 1 as well as some
special needs, and good for training fine motor skills.

Moonbase
Alpha "A 3-D Immersive NASA Exploration Game. Step into the
role of an explorer in a futuristic lunar settlement...Moonbase Alpha is the
first of two commercial-quality NASA games developed in partnership with commercial
game developers." Looks great!

NASA's
Eyes Astronomical virtual visualizations
for all! From JPL at CalTech. It's kind of a download plus online program. You
need to download the part for your computer in order to see all the rest. "This
visualization tool requires a quick one-time download and install. Three programs in one:

Of course each one has plenty of
options, and lots of things to see and do.

If
you were to download the Open Dyslexic font, you'd be able to see the text below
in all its dyslexia-friendly glory...

Open
Dyslexic is a new open sourced font created to increase readability
for readers with dyslexia. The typeface includes regular, bold, italic and bold-italic
styles. It is being updated continually and improved based on input from dyslexic
users. There are no restrictions on using OpenDyslexic outside of attribution.
Your brain can sometimes do funny things to letters. OpenDyslexic tries to help
prevent some of these things from happening.

openWeb:
A free iPhone/iPad web browser that uses OpenDyslexic to override the default
fonts on the webpages you read. " openWeb
- Dyslexia friendly web browser." The site also has links to other apps
and helps for installation. (For Windows: download it, open the folder, click
on the Font. Windows should then install it for you.) Thank you, thank you Abelardo
Gonzalez, for all the work you've done! Going in anyplace someone who needs
it might find it!

Owl
& Mouse Educational Software Great phonics software
that reminds us of the old MECC Apple games of the 1980s. Free
software for you to download and install, or play online. Their plug: "Help
your child learn with games, software and educational activities from Owl &
Mouse Educational Software. Early reading software—phonics software, alphabet
games, and Dolch sight words in a fairy tale story. All of it FREE!
Free online USA maps, world maps, map of Europe, map puzzles of the US, Europe,
Africa, Asia, and many more. You can build your own castle and coat of arms—free
downloads."

Roxie's
ABC Fish is a free computer version of the venerable
children's card game. Practice upper and lower case letters, numbers, and a
surprise music composition program at the end! Thanks to its publisher, Latticework
Software (thanks guys), Roxie is now freeware!

Roman
Villa models from Armada Model Designs, Ltd. This has good pictures
of the villa at Butser Ancient
Farm and of villa layouts, but the best part is at the bottom of the page
- you can download FREE PDFs of
two sizes of model Roman villas. The colorful parts, diagrams, and instructions
are in the PDF! You build the villas using card stock. What a school project!
They also have downloads of a Norman castle, pyramids, Fireship - a board game
about the Spanish Armada, and more! What a deal!

Scavenger
Hunts for Kids
"Free, printable treasure hunts, scavenger hunts, and fun games for children."
These are in Word format (.doc), not pdf. The ones we looked at were nice printable
sheets with instructions. These are all downloads, nothing interactive or online.

Scratch
is a free programming language primarily for 8 to 16 year olds. It has an online
community where kids can program and share interactive media such as stories,
games, and animation with others from all over the world. As children create
with Scratch, they learn to think creatively, work collaboratively, and reason
systematically. Scratch is a project of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the
MIT Media Lab. It is provided free of charge. Find out more by clicking on the
cat!

Sebran's
ABC - Free Software For Kids"It's
never too early for your child to become familiar with letters and numbers.
Sebran's ABC's colorful pictures, pleasant music, and gentle games teach letters,
numbers, simple math, and rudiments of reading." Free
to you under GNU license. Reviews are posted on the site. We've "field
tested" Sebran with 5 - 10 year olds. The games are good, they work. Kids
like them, too. Thank you to Marianne Wartoft of Uppsala, Sweden, who wrote
this fine software! You can fine various good places to download Sebran, just
Google Sebran.

Seterra - Free!
Learn Geography. "Seterra is a challenging educational geography
program with 70 different exercises. Learn about states, provinces, countries,
capitals, flags and cities in Africa, Europe, South America, North America,
Asia and Australia, using outline map exercises!" Quick, what's the capital
of Slovenia? Of Texas? Where is Uppland? Find Burkina Faso! Find West Virginia!
Click on Malta! This is wonderful freeware that
really works with kids ages 9 and up - we've used it! Great for high school
and college geography, too. From the talented lady in Sweden who brought you
Sebran! Seterra can now
be played online, and micro-countries
are included! Used and loved by geography teachers, it's one of our faves!

Soup ToysYou
have got to try this it is amazing! "Just about every child likes
to play with toys that make noise, balance, topple, float or otherwise interact
with the world. Balls bounce, balloons float into the sky and magnets lift metal
objects. All of these interactions teach children something the natural world
around them. The beauty of Soup Toys is that it isn't confined to a single Window.
When you run it, you have access to a virtual "toybox" where you can
pull out the desktop toys that you want to play with. The sides of your computer
screen act like walls and the floor. You can build block castles, play with
toy cars, or have fun with virtual magnets. The possibilities are limitless."
This was from the writeup in Educational
Freeware. We found a working download site here.

Stellarium
"is a free open source planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic
sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope.
It is being used in planetarium projectors. Just set your coordinates and go."
We love the constellation settings that let you show the mythological chracters
around the bowl of the sky! This is in the same genre as Celestia.

STEMware:
Zombie Plague from the Partnership for Biotechnolgy and Genomics Education,
University of California - Davis. " In STEMware: Zombie Plague, students
explore a 3D world where they are responsible for identifying the pathogenic
microorganism causing a deadly outbreak and implementing a cure... the science
content embedded in the software deals with diagnosis, treatment strategies,
and career connections that are applicable to any disease caused by viruses,
bacteria or fungi. Interactions with characters in-game, introduce students
to the variety of career pathways in modern biology along with diagnostic technologies
used in the real world. Embedded assessments allow teachers to track student
interactions." Kind of a mix between a James
Patterson game and Edheads. Download
the game here,
or use the Curriki link above. It's a 305mb .zip file, so we suggest you save
the file on a flash drive for installation on more than one machine.

Storytelling
Arc, FREE Handout to Use With ANY Short Story, Novel, or Play. "This
2-page PDF file includes a blank form and a completed sample to serve as a model
for students. The sample is from my students’ study of Edgar Allan Poe’s
short story 'The Cask of Amontillado,' but you could use the blank worksheet
with ANY book or short story. This activity is designed to work with fifth graders
through high school seniors." To see a BIG version of this graphic, click
on this little one. This free download is from
Laura Randazzo's
TPT site and is rated 4 out of 4 by 57 teacher reviewers.

SuperTux
All right, already! Due to popular demand we are posting this free
game. What's it like? Think Super Mario with a penguin. Good graphics, good
musical beat, VERY playable. Seems to develop hand-eye coordination. Just remember
to drag the kids off it and make them go out and get their hour of play every
day! Free to you under GPL license. "SuperTux is available for Windows,
Linux, MacOSX as well as numerous other more exotic systems."

Tellin'
Timefree download game for Windows only. "I
put this together for my kids to practice reading the time off of an analog
clock. It's based on a flashcard type game where an analog (12 hour) clock face
displays a random time. The child is then expected to enter the "digital
equivalent". A four minute timer runs in the background, and a count of
correct/incorrect answers is displayed. This program is freeware. Enjoy."

Timez Attack Now with
Division drills in the new Version 4.5! "The
Ultimate Multiplication Tables Video Game"
This game is wonderful, and the base (2s-12s) version is a free
download. If you want the expansions you'll have to buy them. They're
quite good. Everything Big Brainz says is true, kids love this game. Now with
a new upgraded free version! NOTE:
Our link goes only to their Download page. For everything else, go to the
Main
Page at Bigbrainz.com. PS: Version 4.5 really is a lot different. Our kids
like it better!

Tux
Paint
Kids really love playing with this program! "Tux Paint is a free,
award-winning drawing program for children ages 3 to 12 (for example, preschool
and K-6). It combines an easy-to-use interface, fun sound effects, and an encouraging
cartoon mascot who guides children as they use the program. Kids are presented
with a blank canvas and a variety of drawing tools to help them be creative."

The
Virtual Microscope
from University of Illinois. Oh you've got to get this for kids! Amazing closeups!
Plug in a digital projector and show these on the wall! "The Virtual Microscope
is a NASA-funded project that provides simulated scientific instrumentation
for students and researchers worldwide as part of NASA's Virtual Laboratory
initiative. This site serves as home base for the Imaging Technology Group's
contributions to that project—namely virtual microscopes and the multi-dimensional,
high-resolution image datasets they view. Currently we provide 90 samples totaling
over 62 gigapixels of image data. The Virtual Microscope, which is available
for free download supports functionality from electron, light, and scanning
probe microscopes, datasets for these instruments, training materials to learn
more about microscopy, and other related tools. The project is open source and
the code is available on Sourceforge." More info at the site. Note:
This program requires Java.

WolfQuest
Episode 2 is out! Download
it! From the Minnesota Zoo and EduWeb comes this excellent download wolf
simulation game. Players become a wolf and explore Yellowstone Park! Kids from
elementary to high school love to play this game, it's hard to get them to stop!
We printed out the enclosed instructions for players to use. Needs a newer computer
with good graphics. The download includes both episode 1 and 2.